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The Domesday Teamland: A Reconsideration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J.S. Moore
J.S. Moore
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History, Royal College of Science and Technology (University of Strathclyde), Glasgow.
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Extract

Although the Domesday survey has long been used effectively to illuminate many aspects of English history in the eleventh century, attempts to use it for reconstructing the contemporary rural landscape and structure of landholding have been less frequent and less successful. This has partly been caused by the fact that most commentators since the days of Maitland and Vinogradoff have concentrated on the making of Domesday rather than on its actual contents. However, even the series of Domesday Geographies by Professor Darby and his collaborators is marred by the failure to determine the meaning of the formula terra unius carucae or its equivalents. This expression has been translated in the present paper as ‘teamland’, rather than the ‘ploughland’ favoured by most modern writers on Domesday, because use of the latter synonym would prejudice the later argument by presupposing the argued identification of the Domesday ‘land for one plough’ with the field-hide or carucate found in later manorial records.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 14 , December 1964 , pp. 109 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1964

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References

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page 111 note 2 Darby, op. cit., pp. 40–43.

page 112 note 1 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 419–23; Ballard, op. cit., p. 43.

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page 114 note 3 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, D. (London, 1961), p. 162.Google Scholar

page 114 note 4 Ibid., loc. cit.; cf. Jenkinson, H., Domesday Re-bound (H.M.S.O., 1954), pp. 8, 34–35Google Scholar; Finn, R.W., The Domesday Inquest (London, 1961), pp. 189–90Google Scholar. The date of the final recension and eventual binding-together of the centrally-produced summary as the Exchequer Domesday is irrelevant to the above argument: the crucial factor is the last date for the completion of the local collection and regional abbreviation of information by the circuit clerks.

page 115 note 1 Galbraith, op. cit., p. 19.

page 115 note 2 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Stubbs, W. (R[olls] S[eries], 1889), p. 317.Google Scholar

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page 116 note 1 Stevenson, op. cit., loc. cit.

page 116 note 2 Whitelock, op. cit., p. 161.

page 116 note 3 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. Arnold, T. (R.S., 1879), p. 207Google Scholar; Orderic[us Vitalis, Historia Eccksiastica, ed. Prévost, A. Le], (Société de l'hist. de France, Paris, 1838–1855), iii, p. 311.Google Scholar

page 117 note 1 Galbraith, op. cit., p. 60.

page 117 note 2 Hemingi Chartularium, i, p. 288; Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, ed. Douglas, D.C. (London, 1932), p. 3.Google Scholar

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page 117 note 5 Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. Johnson, C. (Nelson's Med. Texts, 1950), p. xiv.Google Scholar

page 117 note 6 Ibid., p. 63.

page 118 note 1 See p. 114, n. 1, above, and references there cited.

page 118 note 2 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 37–39, 41–46, 50–66; Ballard, op. cit., pp. 153–54; Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, pp. 205–10; English Society…, pp. 331, 418–20, 452–55, 466–67, 470, 474; The Growth of the Manor, pp. 298, 339–40; Poole, A.L., The Obligations of Society in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1946), pp. 12–13Google Scholar; From Domesday to Magna Carta (Oxford, 1955), p. 39Google Scholar; Loyn, H.R., Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest (London, 1962), pp. 326, 337, 345, 351.Google Scholar

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page 118 note 4 Econ. Journal, lvi, pp. 253–55.Google Scholar

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page 119 note 2 Stevenson, op. cit., loc. cit.

page 119 note 3 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 429–31; Vinogradoff, English Society.…, pp. 145, 422, 427; Douglas, D.C., The Social Structure of Medieval East Anglia (Oxford, 1927), pp. 4, 52, 55Google Scholar; Econ. Journal, lvii, p. 189.Google Scholar

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page 119 note 5 V[ictoria] C[ounty] H[istory], Norfolk, ii (1906), pp. 7–8Google Scholar; Jolliffe, J.E.A., ‘A Survey of Fiscal Tenements’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 1st Series, vi 1936), p. 163.Google Scholar

page 120 note 1 Douglas, , The Social Structure of Medieval East Anglia, ch. 2, passim; Dodwell, op. ch., p. 154; Econ. Journal, lvii, p. 195Google Scholar; Homans, G.C., ‘The Frisians in East Anglia’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd Series, x (1958), p. 190Google Scholar. The non-correspondence is noted by Darby, Dom. Geog. ofE. England, pp. 108, 122, 164.

page 120 note 2 See p. 119, n. 1, above, and references there cited.

page 120 note 3 See p. 110, n. 1, above, and references there cited.

page 120 note 4 Econ. Hist. Rev., 1st Series, vi, pp. 157–71.Google Scholar

page 120 note 5 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (R.S.), p. 207; Robert of Torigny, Chronica, ed. Howlett, R. (R.S., 1889), p. 74Google Scholar; Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, ed. Madden, F. (R.S., 1866), i, p. 27Google Scholar; Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, H.R. (R.S., 1874), p. 18.Google Scholar

page 121 note 1 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 427, 471–73; The Lincolnshire Domesday and the Lindsey Survey, ed. Foster, C.W. and Longley, T. (Lines. Rec. Soc, xix, 1924), pp. xv–xixGoogle Scholar; V.C.H., Derbyshire, i (1905), pp. 317–18;Google Scholar V.C.H., Leicestershire, i (1907), pp. 284–86Google Scholar; V.C.H., Northamptonshire, i (1902), pp. 264–69Google Scholar; V.C.H., Nottinghamshire, i (1906), pp. 317–18Google Scholar; V.C.H., Yorkshire, ii (1912), pp. 136–38.Google Scholar

page 121 note 2 Darby, Dom. Geog. of E. England, pp. 37–39; Dom. Geog. of M. England, pp. 319–21,363; Dom. Geog. of N. England, pp. 19–21, 102–4, 180–82, 244, 289, 401–2, 404.

page 121 note 3 Darby, Dom. Geog. of M. England, pp. 366, 390; Dom. Geog. of N. England, pp. 247, 423.

page 122 note 1 Maitland, op. cit., p. 471.

page 122 note 2 Bookland, unlike folkland, could normally be alienated and devised; according to II Canute, cap. 70, if its holder died intestate, it was divided, like folkland, between his wife and children; Pollock, F. and Maitland, F.W., Hist, of English Law before the time of Edward I, 2nd edn (London, 1898), i, pp. 252–54, 263, 267Google Scholar; Plucknett, T.F.T., Concise Hist, of the Common Law, 5th edn (London, 1956), pp. 525, 726.Google Scholar

page 122 note 3 Orderic, ii, pp. 31, 33, 36–37, 100; v, pp. 174, 176–77; Gallia Christiana xi (Paris, 1874), pp. 12, 59–60, 107, 126, 203, 226Google Scholar; Haskins, C.H., Norman Institutions (Harvard, 1918), p. 256CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Recueil des actes des dues de Normandie, ed. Fauroux, M. (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, xxxvi, 1961)Google Scholar, passim. The equivalence of terra unius carucae and terra unius aratri is shown by Bibl. Nat., MS. Lat. 5656, fos I2V, 30r, cited in Lennard, R., ‘The Origin of the Fiscal Carucate’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd Series, xiv (1944), p. 62,Google Scholar n. 3. In Anjou, a charter of 1097 shows that here, too, land was commonly measured by these units (Cartulaire de Vabbaye de Saint-Aubin d'Angers, ed. Broussillon, B.de (Paris, 1903), i, p. 168)Google Scholar, and they are also found in the late-eleventh and twelfth centuries in Alsace and Champagne (Cartulaire de Fabbaye de Molesme, 916–1250, ed. Laurent, J. (Paris, 1911), pp. 14, 63, 89Google Scholar; Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunois, ed. Mabille, E. (Châteaudun, 1874), p. 142Google Scholar; Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Montiéramey, ed. Lalore, C. (Paris, 1890), p. 95)Google Scholar. I am indebted to Professor Lucien Musset, of the University of Caen, for many Norman references, and to Dr David Herlihy, of Bryn Mawr College, for the references outside Normandy.

page 123 note 1 Bloch, M., Les caracteres originaux de Vkistoire rurale française (Paris, 1931), pp. 161–62;Google Scholar Dauvergne, R., L'histoire rurale française: Supplément (Paris, 1956), p. 95.Google Scholar

page 123 note 2 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (R.S.), p. 176.

page 123 note 3 Orderic, iii, p. 311.

page 123 note 4 Round, J.H., ‘Notes on Domesday Measures of Land’, Domesday Studies, ed. Dove, P.E. (London, 1888), i, pp. 208–10, 217–18.Google Scholar

page 123 note 5 Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores Decent, ed. Twysden, R. (London, 1652), pp. 1770–84, 2222Google Scholar; cf. Jolliffe, J.E.A., Pre-feudal England: The Jutes (Oxford, 1933), pp. 16, 21, 56.Google Scholar

page 123 note 6 Bloch, op. cit., pp. 157, 160–62.

page 123 note 7 Maitland, op. cit., p. 426.

page 124 note 1 See p. 110, n. 5, above, and references there cited. Cf. Custumals of the Sussex Manors of the Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Redwood, B.C. and Wilson, A.E. (Sussex Rec. Soc, lvii, 1958), pp. 30–110Google Scholar: the field-hide in South Mailing Manor varies from 38 acres in the south to 600 acres in the north.

page 124 note 2 Eyton, op. cit., pp. 23–25; Domesday Studies, i, pp. 208–10, 217–18.Google Scholar

page 124 note 3 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 418–43; Vinogradoff, English Society …, p. 162; The Growth of the Manor, pp. 156, 267.

page 124 note 4 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 421–23.

page 124 note 5 Ibid., pp. 435–46.

page 124 note 6 Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor, pp. 254–55.

page 125 note 1 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 418–19.

page 125 note 2 Ibid., pp. 433–34–

page 125 note 3 Tait, J., ‘Large Hides and Small Hides’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xvii (1902), pp. 280–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vinogradoff, The Growth of the Manor, p. 155.

page 125 note 4 B.M., Harley MS. 61, fos 37r-5 5V (Shaftesbury Abbey, c. 1106); The Burton Abbey Twelfth Century Surveys, ed. Bridgeman, C.G.O. (William Salt Archaeol. Soc, 1916), pp. 212–47Google Scholar (c. 1114–15, c. 1125–27); Chronicon Petroburgense, ed. T. Stapleton (Camden Soc, 1849), pp. 157–83 (c. 1125–28).

page 126 note 1 Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, pp. 239–41.

page 126 note 2 Thus variations in the size of the field-hide in the manor of South Mailing correspond closely with variations in the quality of the local soils: in the parishes of South Mailing and Ringmer, on the good or moderate chalk or greensand soils, the hide contains between 40 and 130 acres; in Framfield and Uckfield, on the fairly poor Tunbridge Wells sand and Wadhurst clay, between 160 and 320 acres; in Mayfield and Wadhurst, mostly on the very poor Ashdown sands, between 320 and 640 acres; cf. Bloch, op. cit., p. 158.

page 127 note 1 Maitland, op. cit., p. 417.

page 127 note 2 Eng. Hist. Rev., lx, pp. 217–33; t n e orthodox rejoinder by Finberg, H.P.R., ‘The Domesday Plough-Team’, Eng. Hist. Rev., lxvi (1951), pp. 67–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is unconvincing and circular in its argument.

page 127 note 3 For later evidence of the variable-strength plough-team, see Richardson, H.G., ‘The Medieval Plough-Team’, History, xxvi (1942), pp. 287–94;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lennard, R., ‘The Composition of Demesne Plough-Teams in Twelfth Century England’, Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxv (1960), pp. 193–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 128 note 1 For the variable-strength plough-team in these carucages, see Mitchell, S.K., Taxation in Medieval England, ed. Painter, S. (Yale, 1951), pp. 112, 131, 136–38, 154, 177–79Google Scholar. The size of the carucate-hide in these carucages was probably also variable, since the passage in Roger de Hoveden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, W. (R.S., 1868–1871), iv, pp. 46–47,Google Scholar usually considered to prove the contrary, by fixing the size of the carucate at 100 acres (Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 14, 91, 128, 177), in fact refers to the ‘wainage of one plough’, a very different matter, as has been noted by Davis, R.H.C., Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc, 5th Series, v (1955), p. 28, n. 2.Google Scholar

page 128 note 2 Galbraith, V.H., Studies in the Public Records (Oxford, 1948), p. 103,Google Scholar thus translates verbis communibus annotata; cf. Dialogus de Scaccario (Nelson's Med. Texts), p. 63.

page 129 note 1 Pollock, F., ‘A Brief Survey of Domesday’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xi (1896), p. 220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 130 note 1 Domesday Book, i. 22a 22b; V.C.H., Sussex, i (1905), p. 418.Google Scholar

page 130 note 2 P.R.O., Rentals and Surveys (S.C.11), 877 (Laughton); Lewes, Barbican House, G.1/225, G.41/3, G. accession 917, fos 4V, 5r; B.M., Cotton MS. Nero E.vi, fo. 164 (Compton-Berwick). The Laughton survey mentions few tenemental units, but these can be identified from later account-rolls and court-rolls (B.M., Add. Ch.).

page 130 note 3 See Plate; Laughton and Stockingham.

page 130 note 4 I am grateful to the Trevelyan Society of the University of Keele for the opportunity of reading an earlier version of this paper, which has since benefited from the criticisms of Professor F. R. H. Du Boulay and Messrs H. R. Leech, D. Nicholl, A. J. D. M. Mclnnes, P. Spufford, A. S. Hall, A. Harrison and D. Rothwell. For the faults remaining and the views expressed I am solely responsible.